


Untouchable

by Shhxstopxyelling



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Adolescence, Anorexia, Body Dysphoria, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Gen, Introspection, It’s my turn to project onto Lou, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29057652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shhxstopxyelling/pseuds/Shhxstopxyelling
Summary: A 14 year old Lou’s experience with womanhood.TW: Body dysmorphia and disordered eatingPlease DO NOT read if this may be triggering for you
Kudos: 8





	Untouchable

Lou squared her shoulders off and stood tall opposite the full length mirror hung on the door. Turning, she placed a hand on her collarbone, running it down over her chest where the unmistakable swell of her breasts began to show under her sweater. She recalled the sweater hanging off of her lithe frame without form the previous year- and although she had gained some considerable height since then- it still fell below her hips, for which she was grateful. 

She tugged the garment up to rest just above her belt, folding it over and bunching it up incrementally to divert the eye. It didn’t do much. 

She pulled the sweater off, exposing the lace-imitation polyester bra her mother had refused to buy for her. 

Her fingers ran over her hip bone and rounded into the curve of her thigh. She pinched a bit of the skin, waiting for the enticing jolt that accompanied such movements to shoot through her veins.

But it did not come.

She looked down to her hip, which jutted out and curved down towards her thigh: the band on her boys’ cargo pants were too small, having left imprints on her waist from when she wore them the day before. 

She didn’t need a belt with the jeans she wore now. She pulled it off and threw it on her bed, grateful for the added ambiguity it created.

‘Louise, darling, you need to wear more things that show off your figure.’ She could hear her aunt chide.

Lou turned to the side in the mirror, her eyes traveling down the curves that suddenly appeared without her consent. Her hand ran down her stomach and along the dip in her waist. She looked like a woman, a foreign figure that she never invited in. 

She didn’t know this woman as herself. 

Lou undid the fastening of her jeans, throwing them across the room and leaving her standing in her underwear in front of the old mirror.

The sharpness of her figure had disappeared behind these strange curves.

Her breasts pressed heavily against her lungs, making her fight for breath with an increasing intensity. Blackness swarmed in her vision and a waves of unbearable heat rolled over her.

Lou’s right hand grabbed her left shoulder, intent on ripping the flesh from her bones. She let her fingers trace along her collarbone hidden beneath the surface of her skin. 

It occurred to her that if she had a blade she would cut away at the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts, leaving nothing but sharp, jagged edges and uninviting protrusions of bone.

Sucking in her stomach, Lou turned to the side, admiring the articulation of each rib when she stretched towards the opposite side. She ran her hand across her ribs, each bone producing a satisfying beat as her fingers crossed it. It reminded her of running her hand along a wrought iron fence, like she would as a child walking home from school. 

She was cherished as a child: an uncorrupted spirit and body full of endless potential. Before anyone noticed how pretty she’d be if she’d just smiled more, or showed off a bit more skin. How precious she’d been when the only thing that dared touch her was the protective hands of her mother: before the calloused fingers of a seventeen year old boy mapped her skin with bruises disguised as love. Before she had drank too much and forgot how to say no.  _ Did he think that she was pretty? _

She pretended to like the taste of vodka and the rough stubble of a highschool boy’s chin at a party she wasn’t invited to. 

He’d felt her up, his sour breath turning her stomach as she pulled away. 

_ ‘Loosen up, sweetheart.’ _

It made her lip curl which was of course seen as an invitation. 

He felt her up in that dingy bar that she would never admit to having visited. He kissed her with an open mouth that reeked of nicotine and something sour. 

He made her long for the days when her body was nothing more than the scrawny angles of shoulder blades and elbows rather than the warm invitation of a woman’s outline.

She wanted her touch to be so harsh that you’d start to wonder if bone could cut. 

Lou thought back to a time when the fuckability of a girl’s body wasn’t the only thing that had value. She thought back to when gawkish limbs and cherubic faces meant that you were untouchable. 

It had been easy enough. She was hungry at first, but she quelled an aching stomach with warm tea, and after a while she forgot how to feel hungry. 

When her vision swarmed it meant that she was strong. When her body felt weak her mind became sharp. When head head pounded she was high. 

The feeling of emptiness was the feeling of beauty, of being untouchable and pure. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of a reflection of my own experiences in regards to my relationship with gender and sexuality. I decided to write from Lou’s perspective because I believe the character may have had a similar relationship to gender in her adolescence.


End file.
